Event 21 - BHF London to Brighton Bike Ride 2019
My lovely neighbour Debbie couldn’t use her entry so my pal Rachel took her spot and I couldn’t have had a better person by my side for this event. We chatted and grimaced at the rain and drank (yep beer and wine haha) together and just had the best time despite the crappy British weather. Neither of us are cyclists - we’re runners at heart so we even had that in common!
We were so laid back about this event - perhaps a little too laid back? Rachel popped over to my house at about 7pm the previous evening to sort something to wear and good old Amazon delivered my storage bags for the bike at 4pm (ordered less than 24hrs previously) to store the things I’d need for the ride. We had totally different start times of 7am and 9am - yep we didn’t even get that sorted in time ....so unusual for two such organised people lol!
So we made a vague plan to meet at 5am at Saltdean tunnel, cycle to Hove and bus it to London (bused provided by the organisers). We took our breakfast with us (which for Rachel was a brick of porridge 😂.... she’d not quite added enough milk!) and apart from the cold it went really smoothly. The queues for the bus are very long so if anyone plans to do this in future years, we got to Hove lawns at about 5:30am and we entered the 8:30am wave with no hanging around - just to give you an idea of timings.
Our bikes were last on so first off the storage truck - I liked the fact it doesn’t go out your sight, it travels ahead of your coach up to London so you always know where your bike is.
Once we started the ride, London was pretty interesting - sirens, angry motorists, etc etc but despite that and the rain, the atmosphere was good and we had a cyclist near us with a music speaker who was putting on some funny tunes! He’d obviously thought about his set list in advance because no one can come up with such appropriate songs that quick surely?!! He made us all laugh and sing along!
Well what can I say - there was a lot of cycling....and more cycling.....oh yes, I fell off my bike... twice. Not proper falling off your bike - but I had new cleat shoes and I kept forgetting to unclip them when I stopped which I found quite funny but it was quite worrying for Rachel and other poor participants around me. One lovely man actually catching me at one of the rest stops 😂!! Where was he when I fell for the third time at the finish line haha?!!!
Rachel and I definitely preferred getting out of London and out into the suburbs. We didn’t really use the rest stops provided by the event organisers so I can’t comment on those but once we’d had enough of the rain and having gone past quite a few very nice looking pubs along the way we decided to stop at the next nice looking one. And lo and behold ....I could NOT believe it but the next pub we came across was The Curious Pig - THE pub that had rescued me at the 50km point on the London to Brighton ultra. I didn’t even know the routes crossed. I was amazed...and I ordered exactly the same thing at the bar, a pint and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps! At this point the heavens really did open and the rain became torrential so Rachel and I justified ourselves that a nice long rest stop was in order! We chatted to a few other lovely participants - one of whom had a friend who’d had three punctures along the way and he had been waiting a very long time for him. We eventually set off from that pub and suddenly Rachel had a puncture.... so we set off back the Curious Pig.... I knew I’d end up there again, I just didn’t think it would be that soon! A free fix and another beer later off we went.... and from here it was more cycling, and yes you guessed it - more cycling. Apart from the inevitable sore bits, we both found the cycling much easier than the marathon running distances we’d both been doing so we were pretty happy about that. I had an even easier time of it as I had a carbon road bike which makes the hills pretty easy. Rachel had a slightly tougher time on her trusty old bike!
The next big stop was in Ditchling - before the Beacon at....yes you guessed it, another pub! Is there a theme here? This event may be good for the serious cycling enthusiasts out there but for me, the joy of this event was just taking it all in, taking it easy and enjoying the pubs along the way! The joy of being able to get from London to Brighton on two wheels rather than my own two feet (even with torrential rain) just made me feel elated! If I do it again, I plan to start earlier and stop at more pubs along the way to soak up even more of the atmosphere of the day. 
We hit the Beacon after a caffeine hit of Revvies and I made it up the hill in one go. I felt emotional close to the top, I was never going to let this hill beat me knowing what I was doing this all for - to raise money and awareness around suicide prevention in memory of my dear sister ❤️. I collapsed onto a verge at the top, elated and then remembered to get some pics for this blog! It was downhill all the way from there and Rachel and I were so glad to be coming home. We love Brighton! The last downhill onto the Lewes Road was such a thrill - you don’t normally get to use that road due to the amount of traffic but it was closed to motorists for this event and I went freefall (is that what it’s even called?) wheeeeeeee! Great fun and great end to a great event. Once over the finish line on Maderia drive, we received our medals, did the obligatory selfie and set off for our journey back to Saltdean on our bikes....and I didn't really mind the extra distance with my Pal. Thanks for a great day Rachel!
My next event is the Colour Obstacle Rush at Brighton Racecourse on 22nd June with Seb 😃....time to get messy!
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